


The Maiden and the Satyr

by AlecdeNocturna



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen, Life paths, Temptation, philosophical musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26007604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlecdeNocturna/pseuds/AlecdeNocturna
Summary: A sheltered girl meets a wild woodland spirit and a conversation ensues.
Kudos: 2





	The Maiden and the Satyr

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear reader and welcome.  
> This is now the second piece of mine that I translated from its original German to English and rewrote a little bit. The original two pages became three.  
> The thoughts and feelings I tried to capture a long time ago resurfaced again with a vengeance and I thought, it was time to revisit this particular piece. I hope, you will find it worth your while.

As the days were hard and the nights were long, there lived a young maiden in Athens.  
She was fair and beautiful, the only daughter of a respectable couple. Her duty in her family's household was, to get water from one of the wells not far out of the city, right at the cusp of the forest and the fields. One day, as she dipped her amphora into the crystal clear water of the well and sang softly a hymn to Athena under her breath, she heard a rustling of leaves in the underbrush. Frightened her eyes jumped around the area like a young buck and her arms began to shiver. What kind of monster could hide in those dark parts of the bushes? Her parents had told her many stories about the wild spirits of the forests and the fields, that would love to snatch a pretty little thing like her away, never to return her to civilization. With her arms and the amphora half-submerged into the well, she was helpless against anyone wishing her ill. So with no little effort, she pulled the nearly full vessel back up and looked around for any kind of possible weapon. At this moment she heard again a sound, that pierced the atmosphere of chirping birds and rustling leaves. It sounded dull, like hooves on the wet forest floor. And then the leaves of a nearby juniper bush began to shake as if something wanted to break through the thick dark green foliage. Her heart felt like little bird wings, beating fast and furious in her ribcage. That was it. If not a monster, then maybe a robber or somebody else equally bad. At last, her searching eyes found a round, smooth rock, the size of her fist. The perfect weapon, or at least the only weapon at hand. She crouched down to pick it up and to conceal it in the light green folds of her chiton. If she would be attacked, the surprise would be on her side, for no one would think a young maiden like her capable enough of such a daring feat. This or something like this thought swirled in her head and put a little bit of steal back into her spine. A dark shadow crept through the bushes and into her field of vision. She pulled her arm back, so she could throw the stone, but before the projectile could leave her hand, the darkened form coalesced into the solid frame of a young man with a bare chest dusted only with deep brown coarse hair and furred goat legs of the same colour. A dainty little flute swung from his simple leather belt and his face held a jovial grin. Fear and surprise let her hand get slack and the stone thudded with a dull sound back to the ground. He lifted both hands up in the air, as a universal sign of peace and spoke to her, like to a spooked foal. "Do not be afraid, for I will not harm you." 

Disbelief clouded the brow of the maiden. Had her parents not told her to be warry of the wicked spirits? Had she not for that reason looked for a weapon? And had she not trembled in fear because of creatures like him? Her amphora became her shield, as she hid her small trembling body behind its red curves. "What do you want of me?" Her voice was high, it held nothing of the sweetness, that had coloured her song before. Only fear and nerves trembled in the notes.

Still, with placating hands up, the young satyr looked around the well and found a fallen tree not too far away as his seat. He needed to take two steps back to reach it, but in his mind, that would hopefully put the girl at ease. 

"Nothing sweetling. I want only a conversation with you. I have seen you many times now, and your beauty and elegance have captured my eyes. After every day the urge to talk to you got stronger and stronger, and I couldn't control it anymore. I had to show myself to you. I needed to see you face to face. To exchange words and thoughts. To hear your voice speaking only to me."  
His words were like honey, sweet and thick and syrupy. They coated her thoughts, made them sluggish, and coloured everything in a golden hue. The trembling of her nerves stopped and her knees began to hurt from the prolonged crouching. Still, her eyes held the storm clouds of skepticism. "My parents warned me about your sort." But that wrenched only a deep belly laugh out of the creature, sitting benign and friendly on the log. His hands swept through the air as if to sweep her doubts and misconceptions away like cobwebs clogging the darkened corners of a room. "You need not fear me or any of my kind. We got a reputation, but we are not that bad. Most people just don't understand us, and fear us therefor." He opened his hands to her, palms up. "See, I got hands like you, maybe a little bit dirtier, but grooves and swelts like any man in the city." He patted his flute. "I can play music like one of your bards too. Maybe not as sophisticated, but it suits me and my friends and we can dance to it." He tipped his lips and forehead. "And I can speak and think like you. I can argue with you, string words together, and hold conversations, as I do right now. So why would you need to fear this wild beat, that is not a beast at all?" 

His words had calmed her heart more and more, and with every proof of his humanity, she came a little bit closer until she sat right next to him. "I just want to talk to you, hear your thoughts, get to know the mind behind the maiden."

And this was something, nobody else had ever said to her. None of the people she talked to wanted to get to know her. They all saw her and thought they knew her already. A delighted little smile bloomed on her face and she began to tell her story. She kept to the truth, for once still fearing the power of the woodland spirit a little, for maybe he could discern lies and would be cross with her, and secondly, it felt good, to just once in her life speak the truth and nothing but the truth.  
She told him about her life, a simple life of a maiden born in the city, of her parents and their trade, of her betrothed and her future a housewife and mother, one day leading the household like her mother did now. And then he asked her about her wishes and her dreams, not those wished and dreamed for her by the others. And she told him those too. She told him, that she cared not for the young man, that was to be her husband, that she cared not her future as the new matron of the house. Her voice sank to a whisper, as she opened up all her secrets stashed in her shivering breast and tipped them all out unto the soft ground, spilling through the flittering sunlight light precious twinkling gems. She dreamt of the hot fires on the hills, the laughing and dancing Maenads, the wild festivals of Dionysios, the freedom of the dark. She dreamt of those things she never knew in her life, and probably would never get to know.

The satyr listened to her words and his grin shrank down to a melancholic soft thing. He stared at her with his deep brown eyes, rich like the soil under his hooves. "Come with me. Just come with me into the forest and the wilds. I can take you to the fires and the festivals. I can take you into the velvet night and to the glittering stars. I will love you under the full moon and will bestow upon you the freedom you are yearning for." His words were hot, urgent, and oh so tempting.  
But the maiden only felt the cold hands of fear grip her heart again. The wild shaking of her head tossed her golden locks around her like a dull halo. "No, I can't. My parents will be full of worry, and I can't trouble them so. I have to return home to them. And they would never allow me to go to the fires by myself."

The satyr's blood began to bubble and his thoughts raised each other like hares in the spring. He sprang from his seat and held his hand out to her. "They needn't know. Come, take my hand. Let me be your guide, I know the way." But the maiden only looked at his hand wich such longing in her deep eyes and sadness clouding her face. "Why? Why me?" Her words were like soft rain on fallen leaves, small and full of doubt.

But he only winked at her and smiled his wicked grin. "Because I have seen your soul. The glittering wings of a butterfly, not yet really open getting crushed in your small cage. I have tasted your nectar and I know you as a free spirit. We are the same. Let me show you your possibilities before the world crushes you under its heels."

The maiden closed her eyes. She could taste the truth in his words. And she saw, what would be. He would take her with him, into the forest, into the wilds, to the hot fires burning on the hills, to the dances and the festivals. He would love her under the moon and would show her everything. And he would bring her back into her room, their little secret. He would bring her flowers, would braid them into her hair, would kiss her on her windowsill. He would come for her into the city, but he would not stay. On a day not too far in the future, he would return to the hills and the fires alone, because she would lose her luster and her newness. She would have her own problems, human problems, city problems, everyday problems. And he would lose interest in her. Alone she would not be able to find the fires and the dances and she would sit at her window, gazing outside to the hills and would wait for him. And he would not come to take her away. And every night she would wait for him, and with everyday, her heart would break a little bit more, until nothing would be left. And she would be a ghost. Alone, the tase of freedom turning to ash on her tongue. He was not malevolent, that she knew, but he was a free spirit and she would never be enough to hold him, to cage him, for that would destroy him too. But she wanted to taste the sweetness of freedom like she had wanted nothing before in her life. His promise sounded so sweet in her mind, and she could see herself, finding a balance, maybe learning to find her way in the wild herself. She could see herself growing out of her girlish thoughts, forging a path for herself. And did that not leave a bittersweet tang in her mouth? Like the ripe pomegranate seeds, Persephone herself ate in the underworld. Her hand crept towards the one still hanging in the air, still waiting for her.

But what would her parents say? What would the others say? Her mind was is whirlwind of possibilities and fears, her skin too tight, too hot, everything too much. And then she saw before her inner eye one goddess, cool like a splash of fresh water on her heated skin. Athena, the patron of her city. She would know. She knew everything. And she ran. She left the amphora, she left the satyr, she left everything behind on her wild flight. In Athena's great temple high on the Acropolis, she sank to her knees and prayed to the goddess. She let her cool thoughts and logic sweep over her, let them cool her mind and soul. One of the priestesses blessed har afterward and she left the temple with dainty steps. At home, her parents were sick with worry. Where had she been? What had happened? She told them about a wild boar, that had frightened her at the well, forcing her to leave the amphora back there. Her mother scolded her, how had she even been so stubborn as to go herself? They had slaves for that kind of work. From now on she would stay at home and learn the beginnings of managing a household for herself, part of that being, that she would delegate menial work to the slaves. She nodded and thanked her mother for her wisdom and patience. But know she needed some time alone to quiet her heart and mind. Her room felt stuffy and hot with the strong sunbeams warming it through the small window and the dust glittering in them like little diamonds. Her heart pulsed in her chest, waves of pain radiating out, with every step towards the window a new searing stabbing pain cursing through her. One last glance towards the hills, one last crystalline tear running down her flushed cheek and then she shut the window covers with trembling hands. She lied down on her bed, letting the sound of the household lull her to sleep. A kind of sleep she would never really wake from again. She would mary, she would have children, she would even lead the household, she would grow old and die. But she would never dream again, for she had murdered her dreams on this day with her own hands and their blood would forever stain her.


End file.
